- Australia: Man charged after vehicle allegedly hits rugby league fans
Source: New York Times
“An 18-year-old man has been charged by New South Wales Police after a vehicle allegedly struck 10 people during a parade of rugby league side Newcastle Knights fans. A five-year-old girl is in a critical but now stable condition, while a 67-year-old man’s condition was considered critical but is currently reported to be serious but stable. A two-year old girl and a second five-year-old girl, whose conditions are described by police as stable, were among eight others hit. … NSW Police said that the driver had been released from hospital and charged with nine offences, including three counts of dangerous driving, three counts of negligent driving and three counts of causing bodily harm by misconduct, in charge of motor vehicle.” (10/03/26)
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7655514/2026/10/03/newcastle-knights-australia-fans-parade-car/
- Maduro Not Immune to Prosecution in Narco-Terror Case, US Regime Says
Source: mint [India]
“Nicolás Maduro is not entitled to immunity from criminal charges, US prosecutors said, countering the former Venezuelan president’s bid to toss the US’s narco-terrorism case against him. Maduro and Cilia Flores — Maduro’s wife who also faces charges — are ‘former rogue officials of a formerly rogue state with no entitlement to immunity,’ the US argued in a filing in Manhattan federal court late Friday. His defense team argued last month that he is immune to prosecution in the US as the head of a sovereign country.” [editor’s note: The better argument is that the Constitution limits criminal prosecutions to “the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,” and Venezuela is neither a state nor a district of the United States – TLK] (10/04/26)
- UK: Iranian men scouted synagogue for chlorine bomb plot, prosecutor says
Source: ABC News
“Two Iranian men conducted surveillance of a Manchester synagogue that was the site of a deadly attack a year ago as part of a plot to bomb it this year, a prosecutor said Saturday. Salam Ahmadyan, 36, and Rahman Salehi, 34, researched attacking the Heaton Park Congregation Synagogue in Manchester in northwest England and the Jewish Museum in nearby Cheetham Hill, the court was told. Ahmadyan and Salehi were arrested last month and charged Friday with engaging in conduct in preparation for terrorist acts. … Prosecutor Mark Luckett said the duo were directed by a third person believed to be in Iran who coordinated plans and provided instructions on making a homemade chlorine bomb.” (10/03/26)
- Medical plane with six on board missing off Massachusetts coast
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“US authorities are searching for six people after a medical plane bound for Boston, Massachusetts, went missing early Saturday morning. The Federal Aviation Administration told the BBC that it lost contact with the Gulfstream G-100 plane and put out a search-and-rescue notice just after 1:00 local time (6:00 GMT). An air and water search is underway off the coast of Nantucket, a Massachusetts island, according to the US Coast Guard’s Northeast District. The plane departed from Bermuda’s L.F. Wade International Airport at 23:40 local time, according to flight data from FlightAware, and was slated to land at Boston’s Logan International at 1:30 EDT (6:30 GMT). According to the tail number released by the Coast Guard, the plane belonged to Latitude Air Ambulances, a company that provides international medical flights for patients returning home.” (10/03/26)
- TN: Outgoing prison chief oversaw five “botched” prisoner killings, lawyers say
Source: The Guardian
“Tennessee’s prison chief is resigning after the failed [killing] of Christa Pike, which lawyers say was the fifth ‘botched’ [prisoner killing] under his leadership across two states since 2022. Frank Strada, the commissioner of the Tennessee department of correction, has faced mounting questions about the state’s highly secretive death penalty protocols since Wednesday evening when Pike became the first death row prisoner in the US to to be injected with lethal drugs and survive. … Death penalty lawyers said there were common threads in the five problematic [prisoner killings] under Strada, including the prisoners’ protracted suffering and questionable injection procedures, and argued that Lee should never have appointed Strada given his Arizona record.” (10/03/26)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/03/christa-pike-frank-strada-botched-executions
- Noah’s Ark researchers “inching toward” confirmation after drilling challenges natural-rock theory
Source: Fox News
“A team investigating a boat-shaped formation in eastern Turkey says new evidence is strengthening its case that the site could hold the remains of Noah’s Ark. ‘In archaeology, you deal with probabilities, and we’re inching towards where we believe we will have confirmation this winter after our soil analysis is done with Sivas University, who’s our partner in this,’ Noah’s Ark Scans founder Andrew Jones told ‘Saturday in America’. The focus of the investigation is the Durupınar formation, an approximately 538-foot-long geological structure near Mount Ararat. Its shape and proximity to the region identified in the biblical account have fascinated Ark hunters for decades. The boat-shaped formation was first discovered in 1959 and has long-drawn speculation over a possible connection to Noah’s Ark.” (10/03/26)
- Ethiopia: Regime Forces Seize Capital of Tigray Region From Rebels
Source: US News & World Report
“Ethiopian government forces and allied militias have regained control of the capital of Tigray, three sources told Reuters on Sunday, dealing a major setback to the opposition alliance that rules the northern region. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which leads the opposition alliance, said in a statement posted on Facebook it had retreated from the capital and that the regional government would be ‘temporarily moved out of Mekelle and operate from somewhere else.’ A source close to the pro-government militia, the Tigray Peace Forces, said its fighters entered the centre of Mekelle on Saturday afternoon, followed by the Ethiopian military. A humanitarian source and a Mekelle resident, who asked not to be named, confirmed the city was controlled by government forces. The prime minister’s office did not respond immediately to a request for comment.” (10/04/26)
- MS: Father and son smoke shop workers arrested in students’ suspected kratom deaths
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“A father and son who worked at a Mississippi smoke shop have been arrested and charged in connection with the death of at least one university student who died from a suspected overdose of kratom, sometimes called ‘gas station heroin’ in the US. The pair worked at a shop that allegedly sold derivatives of the substance to University of Mississippi students. US prosecutors charged Yahya Mohamed Mosleh, 51, and Islam Yahya Mosleh, 18, for possession with the intent to distribute controlled substances in connection with the death investigation of two Ole Miss students last month. Although their deaths have not officially been attributed to kratom, officials afterward issued warnings about consuming kratom.” (10/03/26)
- Federal Judge Rules Warrantless Flock Search Violated Fourth Amendment
Source: Dallas Express
“A federal judge ruled that a deputy violated the Fourth Amendment by searching a driver’s historical vehicle-location records without a warrant through license plate reader systems, including Flock Safety. U.S. District Judge Sara E. Hill of the Northern District of Oklahoma issued the 38-page ruling Thursday in United States v. Melisa Susan Kyle. She ordered prosecutors to exclude all evidence officers obtained after the deputy initiated the search. Federal prosecutors charged Kyle with possessing more than 500 grams of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. Hill’s October 1 order addressed how officers obtained evidence, not whether Kyle committed the alleged offense.” (10/03/26)
- “Monty Python” legend John Cleese doubles down after incenidiary posts about Islam spark UK complaint
Source: New York Post
“‘Monty Python’ legend John Cleese is doubling down on his months-long string of incendiary posts about Islam after activists filed a complaint that asked Britain’s counter-radicalization program to scrutinize him over the missives. ‘How exciting,’ the 86-year-old comedian wrote after learning that a member of the public had referred him to Prevent, a British government program designed to intervene when authorities believe someone may be vulnerable to radicalization or becoming involved in terrorism. The September 22 referral, first reported by Muslim-focused British news outlet 5Pillars, accused Cleese of ‘a sustained pattern’ of online activity that ‘demonizes, dehumanizes, and collectively attributes violence and criminality to Muslims and Islam’.” (10/03/26)
- Latvia: PM on track to lead pro-Ukraine coalition after parliamentary election victory
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs was set to retain power and form a coalition after his centrist United List won parliamentary elections on Sunday, the biggest in the country’s post-independence history. While the result is expected to reinforce the Baltic country’s pro-European and pro-Ukrainian stance, populist parties also made significant gains. … Populist parties, boosted by support from Latvia’s Russian-speaking minority, also had a good night after an election campaign dominated by fears over neighbouring Russia, the cost of living and other social issues.” (10/03/26)
- Trump announces $90 bribes for seniors on Medicare for premium costs
Source: SFGate
“President Donald Trump is promising more payments to voters just ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections — this time, to more than 20 million seniors, giving them $90 each to help pay for Medicare premiums. The announcement, made late Friday night by Trump on social media, comes after the president last month said about 1 million people would get rebate checks of $500 for Affordable Care Act premiums. He has also promised on the campaign trail to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections. That pledge (which would require approval from Congress) would likely cost more than $1 trillion, adding to the deficit and worsening inflation. Trump highlighted his $5,000 promise at a rally in Vandalia, Ohio, on Saturday night, and told supporters that 70,000 families in the state would receive the ACA rebates ‘within the next couple of days’.” (10/03/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/trump-announces-90-payments-for-seniors-on-22461222.php
- Trump, Cotton tussle over daylight saving after cell phone number leak
Source: The Hill
“President Trump repeatedly berated Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Saturday over his stance on a daylight savings [sic] bill after posting the Republican Congress member’s cell phone number on social media. In a morning Truth Social post, the president encouraged his supporters to call the senator and urge him to back legislation that would make daylight savings [sic] time the permanent standard time. After Cotton stood by his position in a brief statement shared later Saturday, which didn’t directly mention the president or the leak, Trump went back on the offensive. … Trump blamed the GOP lawmaker for holding up the bill in the upper chamber after the House passed the legislation in July with broad bipartisan support.” (10/03/26)
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6127691-trump-cotton-fued-daylight-savings-posts/
- Fundraiser Update / Firehose Friday
Hey, everyone …
Thanks to subscribing contributor JS, whose $10 payment yesterday marks the first move toward our annual fundraiser goal!
Our goal is $5,503, which means we’re only $2,741.50 short — and no, that’s not bad math. Reader GL has pledged to “match funds” for half the goal, so we “only” need a total of $2,751.50 from the rest of you. More on that in a minute, but first the call to action: PLEASE SUPPORT THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT’S DAILY NEWSPAPER at:
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
Today is a “Firehose Friday” at RRND/FND with more than 100 items awaiting your attention at our web edition. We don’t do those very often anymore, because starting earlier this year we began supplementing our 60-item email edition with extra web-only content (usually 10-20 additional items) EVERY day. But every once in a little while (like, say, during our annual fundraiser), we like to really push you toward the web edition.
Now, back to the fundraising lecture:
Other than the occasional “we’re reader-supported” mention, we come to you once, and only once, a year to ask for a fairly modest bit of money.
After 35 years (as RRND, 24 years next month) of reliably (every non-holiday weekday!) bringing you the Internet’s oldest daily news and commentary roundup for libertarians, we hope we’re still earning your support by delivering value. Please return some of that value in the form of financial support at:
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
I’ve been asked by at least one reader whether we’re perhaps just relying on artificial intelligence to do the work these days while we lie on the beach, sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them and working on our tans while robots do all the heavy lifting.
The answer is a hard no. We remain “hand-made,” with two humans personally scouring the news and political media each day, manually choosing, excerpting, and linking the content we expect you’ll find interesting. Nothing against AI as such, but we’re big on the human touch.
And those little drinks with umbrellas in them (actually, I think Steve is more into a beer now and again, and I’m partial to budget diet soda) won’t pay for themselves.
So please, help get us to our goal ASAP so we can stop talking about money entirely for the rest of 2026 and mostly for the first nine months of 2027. That URL one last time:
https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd
Have a happy, healthy, and prosperous weekend, and we’ll be back Monday with the regular email edition!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily - US Regime Sends Carrier Group and 2,000 Marines Toward Middle East as Tanker Is Hit Near Hormuz
Source: Northeast Times
“A US official told Al Jazeera that the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group and the Makin Island amphibious force, carrying 2,000 Marines, have left San Diego. The official said three carriers and two landing groups are deploying around Iran. UK Maritime Trade Operations said a supertanker carrying 2.5 million barrels was struck by an unknown projectile and caught fire while passing through the Strait of Hormuz.” (10/01/26)
- Judge rejects Trump regime’s arguments for withholding boat strike justification memo
Source: The Hill
“A federal judge on Wednesday ruled the Trump administration must turn over a Department of Justice (DOJ) memo that legally authorizes the Pentagon’s lethal boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific. U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer rejected two of the administration’s three arguments to keep the document secret in a 66-page opinion, requiring that the government submit the memo within two weeks for his confidential review. Three legal organizations — the American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights — filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit last year to demand the release of this memo and other records related to these strikes. … More than 230 people have been [murdered] in at least 70 boat strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since the military campaign’s start on Sept. 2, 2025. ” (10/01/26)
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/6124784-judge-orders-doj-memo-release/
- Ukraine: Zelenskyy announces first use of regime’s own ballistic missile
Source: Yahoo! News
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday the country’s military had deployed a domestically developed FP-7 tactical ballistic missile in the war against Russia for the first time. … Zelensky did not specify the target, but published a video of a missile launch at night. The Ukrainian defence firm Fire Point had previously postponed the first combat deployments of its ballistic missile on several occasions. … By developing its own ballistic missile weapon, Kiev aims to achieve parity with Moscow in terms of military capability. Ukraine has already deployed short-range ballistic missiles from old Soviet stockpiles during the war.” (10/01/26)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/zelensky-announces-first-ukraines-own-181837283.html
- SpaceX Crew-13 astronauts dock at ISS less than 8 hours after launch in fastest American flight ever
Source: Space.com
“SpaceX’s latest astronaut launch just set a new space record. The company’s Crew-13 mission for NASA arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) today (Oct. 1) at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT), 7 hours and 55 minutes after it launched from Florida’s Space Coast. That’s the fastest any American spacecraft has ever reached the orbiting lab, NASA officials said. … In May 2020, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying three astronauts reached the orbiting lab just 3 hours and 3 minutes after lifting off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. … Crew-13 delivered four astronauts to the orbiting lab: NASA’s Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Joshua Kutryk of the Canadian Space Agency and Sergey Teteryatnikov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. The quartet will live and work in space for the next six months.” (10/01/26)
- FL: Uthmeier sues Pfizer, CEO over COVID-19 vaccince claims
Source: Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
“Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Thursday filed a lawsuit against Pfizer and its CEO, Albert Bourla, accusing the drugmaker of misleading consumers about the safety and effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine. … Uthmeier filed the lawsuit in state court, alleging that Pfizer told consumers its COVID-19 vaccine was safe while failing to disclose potential risks, including heart inflammation and other adverse events. Pfizer, according to the lawsuit, urged people to get the shot to protect others, even though the company never tested whether the vaccine stopped the virus from spreading. … Pfizer said in a statement the state’s allegations have no merit and that it would respond to the suit in due course.” [editor’s note: While Uthmeier is a grandstanding pol with a history of frivolous publicity-seeking and political corruption, there does seem to be a case here; the discovery phase should prove quite interesting – TLK] (10/01/26)
https://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/business/article317458055.html
- SCOTUS takes up Trump’s mandatory detention policy
Source: The Hill
“The Supreme Court announced Thursday it will decide the legality of President Trump’s mandatory detention policy, putting one of his banner immigration programs on the justices’ docket for their upcoming term. The Trump administration argues it can detain people without bond if they’re found to be in the country unlawfully, even if they have been living on U.S. soil for years. It’s a significant expansion of the government’s immigration powers. The push has fueled thousands of cases claiming the policy exceeds federal law, creating an avalanche of work for judges across the country, who are racing to keep up. The case marks another major confrontation between the Trump administration and the conservative-majority court. However, the justices opted against taking up a broader legal question of whether Trump’s policy violates constitutional due process protections. As of now, the court will only decide if the policy follows federal law.” [editor’s note: Under the “supreme” federal law — the US Constitution — it’s literally impossible to “be in the country unlawfully” – TLK] (10/01/260
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/6122542-supreme-court-mandatory-detention-policy-trump
- Keep the Case for Free Trade Simple
Source: The Daily Economy
by Caleb S Fuller & Scott Burns“Trade isn’t complicated. People around the world work to produce things for one another — and protectionism makes that cooperation harder.” (10/02/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/keep-the-case-for-free-trade-simple/
- Two Parties Confront Ideological Insurgencies, Part Two
Source: American Greatness
by Thaddeus G McCotter“Like Germany’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), America’s center-left Democrat Party faces a challenge from its extreme flank. Unlike the CDU, which has abandoned its past strategy and adopted one of confrontation, the Democrat Party is sticking with its strategy of co-option (not fusion) with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). But will the Democrat Party’s strategy prove any more successful in staving off its possible extinction than the CDU’s? Presently, the Democrat Party has a ringside seat at the continuing struggle between the GOP establishment and President Trump and his MAGA movement, which constitutes a halting attempt at fusion. This occurs when the party establishment and its insurgents, be they internal or external, join together to defeat a common enemy or promote a common position.” (10/03/26)
- A Catholic Theologian Signs Up for Mass Cruelty
Source: The UnPopulist
by Gabriel Schoenfeld“A lesson from the 20th century is that intellectuals sometimes choose to serve monsters. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all found thinkers willing to sing their praise even as they murdered millions. On the spectrum of evil and death, Donald Trump, a crass, ignorant would-be authoritarian, is not in their league. And yet already, under Trump’s rule, people have died—and already lives are being ruined by the tens of thousands. As all this happens, crankish right-wing intellectuals have been drawn to Trump’s scepter as moths to a flame. A case in point, not exactly a household name but not entirely unimportant, is Chad Pecknold.” (10/02/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/a-catholic-theologian-signs-up-for
- Meditations On The Botched Execution Of Christa Pike
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“They botched another execution in Tennessee. They stuck the prisoner full of seven different syringes, but she didn’t die. She just experienced extreme suffering, minute after excruciating minute, before eventually losing consciousness. Her name is Christa Pike. As of this writing, she is still alive. Pike committed a horrific violent crime as a young woman after a life of nightmarish abuse. She was physically and sexually abused by her mother’s live-in boyfriend, was raped by a neighbor when she was eleven, and attempted suicide at the age of twelve. And now she is on a respirator in a hospital as doctors fight to save her life, presumably so that the state of Tennessee can try to kill her again. It’s all so absurd. People are so cruel to each other.” (10/03/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/10/03/meditations-on-the-botched-execution-of-christa-pike/
- Should Americans Vote for Tweedle Dum or Tweedle Dee?
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“How often were Americans told that if Republicans controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress, they would be able to rein in federal spending and even balance the budget. Well, Republicans now control both houses of Congress and the presidency. They could balance the budget today. Have they done so since they took control after the 2024 elections? Nope. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office projected a $1.9 trillion federal deficit for fiscal year 2026. Same old, same old. American right-wingers and left-wingers like to emphasize their differences, but those differences aren’t fundamental in nature. Their fight is over control of the welfare-warfare state.” (10/02/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/10/02/should-americans-vote-for-tweedle-dum-or-tweedle-dee/
- Trump once championed global religious freedom. Here’s why he stopped.
Source: Washington Post
by Matthew Schmitz“Donald Trump championed international religious freedom in his first term, turning a long-standing bipartisan cause into a foreign-policy priority. His administration gave the Office of International Religious Freedom a higher position within the State Department’s bureaucracy, stressed religious freedom in its 2017 National Security Strategy and appointed officials focused on religious freedom at the National Security Council and United States Agency for International Development. Trump’s second term has been dramatically different. Trump has failed to issue statutorily required annual reports, inflicted DOGE-style cuts on religious freedom advocacy groups and demoted the religious freedom office within the State Department’s hierarchy. … Some religious freedom advocates have called the Trump administration’s new approach ‘a betrayal.’ But the challenges faced by international religious freedom extend far beyond the current White House.” (10/02/26)
- Global Warming, Carbon Taxes, and Public Choice
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman“I believe that global warming is probably real, probably anthropogenic, may well impose net costs. This raises an obvious question: What, if anything, should we do about it? If I were dictator of the world and wished to maximize economic efficiency, the answer would be fairly obvious. Impose a tax on activities that create greenhouse gases designed to reflect the marginal cost they create. That is the standard economic solution, due to Pigou, for problems of negative externalities. Since the tax brings in additional revenue, combine it with a corresponding reduction in whatever taxes currently have the largest adverse effects. I do not, in fact, support carbon taxes. The reason is that I do not believe that, if imposed, they would fit the pattern described above.” (10/02/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/global-warming-carbon-taxes-and-public-e98
- The forgotten 1929 massacre that explains the Middle East today
Source: New York Post
by Yardena Schwartz“Since Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas sympathizers have insisted that we must understand the massacre in its historical context — that it did not happen in a vacuum. This much is true. To understand this context, we need to look back at a chapter of history that predates the state of Israel by two decades. That chapter is 1929. On Aug. 24, 1929, more than 3000 Muslim men armed with swords, axes and machetes marched through the ancient Jewish quarter of Hebron, then part of British Mandate Palestine. That Sabbath morning, they slaughtered 67 Jewish men, women and children, and wounded dozens more. Children watched as their parents were butchered by their neighbors. Rabbis and yeshiva students were castrated. Infants were murdered in their mothers’ arms. Young women were raped. Those who survived endured horrific cruelty, with fingers and limbs severed and eyes gouged.” (10/03/26)
- A Pocketful of Rescissions
Source: Independent Institute
by Craig Eyermann“President Donald Trump has once again used an unusual method called a pocket rescission to cut U.S. government spending. Coming just days before the end of the federal government’s 2026 fiscal year on September 30, the move will cancel $810 million of the $7.45 trillion of spending authorized by the U.S. Congress. … The canceled spending represents about 0.01% of what Congress authorized for federal spending during the 2026 fiscal year. The amount of the rescission is a bit like finding you have an unexpected penny left over after spending ten thousand dollars. But coming with just five days left in the 2026 fiscal year doesn’t give Congress time to potentially override the President’s cost-cutting action before it expires. That’s left many Washington D.C. politicians angry over the maneuver.” (10/02/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/10/02/pocketful-rescissions/
- Tennessee Poison
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson“There are many bad arguments against capital punishment: that an innocent person might be wrongly convicted … that the willful taking of human life is categorically evil … that a death sentence cannot be reversed … etc. There are better arguments against capital punishment: One is that capital punishment is bad for the executioners (and, this being a republic, we are all executioners), which ought to be obvious to anybody who has been present at one of those festive ‘Burn, baby, burn!’ rallies death-penalty enthusiasts sometimes stage outside of an execution or to anyone who has heard Donald Trump hold forth on the subject. … Another argument against capital punishment is that we are not very good at it.” (10/02/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/tennessee-botched-execution-death-penalty/
- Where Does Russia’s Violent Imperialism Come From?
Source: Foreign Policy
by Ian Garner“Four and a half years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has conquered no more than a slice of Ukrainian territory. In return, half a million Russian soldiers are dead, the economy is running on fumes, Moscow’s relationship with the West is in tatters, and the country’s reliance on China grows ever stronger. Yet there is no sign of Russian President Vladimir Putin seeking peace. his army continues its bombardment of Ukraine. The frontline voraciously consumes more Russian troops than he can recruit. What is it that drives Russia to wage this hugely costly and apparently irrational war? Could it be the individualist greed, lawless capitalism, and corruption for which the Russian elite is infamous? Or is it a collective neo-imperialism expressed in Putin’s obsession with conquest and Russia’s world-historical mission?” (10/02/26)
- Five Reasons Trump Might Actually Resign
Source: Common Dreams
by Ralph Nader“It is hard to read President Donald Trump’s mind—what with his chronic lies, delusions, and fake promises. His incentives to finish his term are numerous—pomp and ceremony, daily vengeance, judicial immunity, Democratic leaders, for now, opposing impeachment (see ‘Open Letter to Representative Hakeem Jeffries’, August 31, 2026), and immensely enriching himself using the punishing or rewarding powers of the presidency. The rewards are insatiable. This failed businessman, riven with debts and losses, revealed in his 2025 financial disclosures a profit of $1.1 MILLION AN HOUR on a 40-hour week! He probably will reap more dollars in 2026, which he has ensured would be non-taxable by his captured Internal Revenue Service (See: ‘DOJ Settlement ‘Forever’ Bars IRS Trump Audits, Sparks Backlash’).” (10/03/26)
- The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026: 4 ways the new permitting package gets transmission policy right
Source: Niskanen Center
by Rachel Levine & Liza Reed“Last October, we posited that Congress could reach a bipartisan deal on permitting reform to address project timelines and get more transmission and clean energy built. With the introduction of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) of 2026, lawmakers are close to doing just that. Here are four ways the transmission policies in the bill, sponsored by Senators Mike Lee, Shelley Moore Capito, Martin Heinrich, and Sheldon Whitehouse this week, can build the grid we need.” (10/02/26)
- The Myth of the Radical Right
Source: Law & Liberty
by George Hawley“Despite the continuous efforts of right-wing identitarians calling for more racial solidarity, feelings of white identity have not increased among most Republican voters. In fact, we see the opposite. Nor do we see meaningful growth in feelings of white racial grievance. Social media provides a skewed view of American life. The racial anger that seems so pervasive on X (formerly Twitter) is not reflected in these surveys. This means the politicians and media figures chasing accolades from the most bitter voices in the online right are misreading the nation’s political atmosphere.” (10/02/26)
- Two Visions of Peace
Source: Liberalism.org
by Christopher J Coyne“Peacemaking is often understood as a top-down phenomenon: Peace, defined as the absence of large-scale violence, results from state action. … A second view emphasizes peacemaking as a bottom-up process. This perspective recognizes that peace is not a one-size-fits-all policy or outcome, but rather an emergent result of exercising diverse micro-level skills.” (10/02/26)
- Made in “Europe”
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler“If the EU Commission didn’t take itself so seriously, you might think that the so-called Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA) had been given its name as a self-deprecating joke. Unveiled in March, the initiative aims to boost the bloc’s industrial capacity and decarbonization efforts, in order to compete with China and achieve Brussels’s stringent climate goals; but seven months on, its progress through the EU’s bureaucratic obstacle course is steadily decelerating. Like many EU initiatives before it, the IAA is causing internal division—in this case over the scope of the phrase ‘Made in Europe.’ The question at the center of the dispute is whether protectionist measures will help or harm flagging EU industries.” (10/02/26)
- Trump’s fits of pique explain his lifetime of failure
Source: Los Angeles Times
by LZ Granderson“Ideally, the screams of infancy and the insolence of toddlerhood fade as a person grows and the scalpel of life begins sculpting away. Yes, problems still persist, but part of maturing is understanding that ‘he that is slow to wrath is of great understanding but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.’ As the Bible story goes, King Solomon asked God for wisdom, and that proverb was among the things he told him. Of course it’s not necessary to be a Bible follower to understand the drawbacks of hot-headedness as an adult. … President Trump’s tendency to erupt at journalists and others is more than embarrassing or unprofessional. It’s informative.” (10/02/26)
- Red scare: Solid GOP districts reeling from war, price backlash
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Blaise Malley“On Monday, as the war with Iran crossed the seven-month mark, Governor Greg Abbott declared a statewide disaster in Texas as a result of a massive increase in diesel prices and a deepening fuel shortage. Texas is hardly alone. Diesel prices have climbed nationwide since the war began …. As the midterm elections near and the war’s costs hit voters’ wallets, Abbott’s declaration is a window into a larger problem for Republicans across the country, including some in deep red states. An increasing number of Republicans are being forced to spend money and political capital defending seats that they carried easily in recent elections.” (10/02/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-republicans-midterms/
- Why the media got DOGE and Elon all wrong
Source: Fox News
by Tyler Hassen“My book about my time inside DOGE launched last week, and I’ve watched friends who privately cheer me on go completely silent in public. That’s how toxic the stigma around DOGE has become. And that stigma is built on a version of events I barely recognize. My experience inside DOGE was almost nothing like what I read about in the mainstream news. The fairest and most balanced coverage I can remember was our interview on Fox News with Bret Baier in March 2025 — but let me tell you what it was actually like. As the DOGE lead and acting assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of the Interior, I saw the accusations that we cut everything indiscriminately. That could not be further from the truth.” (10/02/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/saw-real-doge-inside-why-media-got-doge-elon-wrong
- Rand Paul Was Right To Block the Senate’s Attempt To Censor the Internet
Source: Reason
by Reem Ibrahim“The bill’s ‘duty of care’ could pressure platforms to suppress lawful speech in the name of protecting children.” (10/02/26)
- Fly the Cruel and Unusual Skies
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“Sometimes, cruel punishment is the usual, as in states like the People’s Republic of China. Everybody is a victim there. But entire ethnic or religious groups of people are routinely subjected to even more cruel tyranny than most Chinese people must put with. If Americans aren’t yet in this situation — not for lack of trying by various local, state, and federal autocrats — one reason is that instances of cruel and unusual punishment can be fought in court. Which is what Ken Jouppi is doing with the help of the Institute for Justice. What was Jouppi’s alleged crime? He let a passenger bring ‘visible’ containers of beer on board his Cessna 206. … Jouppi was punished 13 years ago, a year after the ‘crime,’ with three days in jail and a $1,500 fine. But that wasn’t good enough for the Alaska government, which tenaciously enforces local alcohol prohibitions — it demanded that Jouppi forfeit his $95,000 airplane.” (10/02/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/10/02/fly-the-cruel-and-unusual-skies/
- The Parthenon of the Republic
Source: Law & Liberty
by Hans Zeiger“Independence Hall is one of the great historic buildings because of what happened inside its walls.” (10/02/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-parthenon-of-the-republic/
- Government Failure Is Still Failure
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Shahid Islam“Introductory economics textbooks devote considerable attention to market failure: monopoly power, externalities, public goods and asymmetric information. However, government failure deserves the same scrutiny. Markets are made up of imperfect human beings and so are governments. Legislators, regulators, and civil servants possess limited knowledge, imperfect foresight and incentives of their own. Evidence of market failure is not evidence that government intervention will improve the outcome. The relevant comparison is between feasible alternatives.” (10/02/26)
https://mises.org/power-market/government-failure-still-failure
- The China factor behind the Iran war
Source: Asia Times
by Altaf Moti“The war between the United States and Iran is no longer just a confrontation between Washington and Tehran. A second contest is taking shape alongside and behind it. China is not fighting the United States directly, but its economic, technological and diplomatic links to Iran are complicating Washington’s strategy and ability to win the conflict.” (10/02/26)
https://asiatimes.com/2026/10/the-china-factor-behind-the-iran-war/
- Spencer Foresaw the “Coming Slavery”
Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman“For laissez-faire liberal Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), political trouble began with ‘the unhesitating belief … that evils of all kinds should be dealt with by the State.’ The fatal first step is a government promise to rescue people from their own bad choices, such as their preference for indolence and other irresponsibility. That was a mistake because, as Spencer wrote elsewhere, ‘The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.’ Shielding people from their folly is not only bad in itself, but it also sets in motion a perverse political dynamic that, if allowed to persist, would doom freedom itself.” (10/02/26)
https://sheldonrichman.substack.com/p/tgif-spencer-foresaw-the-coming-slavery
- The Pentagon Neglected Its Own Voters; Hegseth Is Correcting It
Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lucas“The warriors who defend this country must have their votes counted. That requires two things. The first is access. They need the time, the training, and the assistance to register and cast a ballot from wherever the country sends them. The second is protection. Their votes must not be diluted by overseas civilian ballots cast under rules Congress never wrote. The Pentagon has failed on both counts. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is correcting that. Start with access. In 2010 and 2011 I served as an infantry rifle platoon leader in Afghanistan. We operated from a remote combat outpost on the Pakistani border, fighting the Taliban and the Haqqani terror network. Those were the deadliest years of the war. I also ran the Federal Voting Assistance Program for my unit.” (10/03/26)
- AI Has Become a Punching Bag
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen“We here at the Prospect like to point out the ways in which economic power routinely converts into political power. We saw a particularly gruesome example of that this week. Tech executives converged on D.C. for a lunch with Donald Trump that eventually led to a toothless, completely voluntary AI safety agreement. Public Citizen did the service of tallying up all the money that these executives, their families, or the corporations they lead have given to Trump’s campaign, his super PAC MAGA Inc., his inauguration fund, legal settlements that personally enriched the president, or various vanity projects like the White House ballroom. The total came out to $227 million. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, who accounts for $23 million of that total, substantially devised the ‘morally binding’ self-regulatory compact to police AI models that came out of the meeting, and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang (a mere $1 million) was his key lieutenant.” (10/02/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/10/02/ai-spending-trump-openai-greg-brockman-has-become-punching-bag/
- Portraits of an American Dopamine Eater
Source: Liberal Currents
by Alan Elrod“Our attention economy incentivizes the profane degradations of fame-seeking and celebrity culture.” (10/02/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/portraits-of-an-american-dopamine-eater/
- Glimmers of Hope in the Hormuz?
Source: The American Conservative
by Jude Russo“The headline news is good for a change: Energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz are picking up. As of Monday, a seven-day average of 13.5 million barrels of crude oil were transiting the waterway, roughly matching pre-war levels. Two questions arise out of this happy circumstance: First, what has changed operationally? Second, why aren’t markets more jubilant? The second question is easier to answer. A week of good flows does not erase six months of supply disruption.” (10/02/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/glimmers-of-hope-in-the-hormuz/
- The Usefulness of a Massacre
Source: Antiwar.com
by Thomas S Karat“What October 7 opened is visible on the ground before it is visible anywhere else. By the reckoning of an Israeli newspaper, Israel has seized more territory from its neighbors since that day than in any comparable span in decades. The war did not stay in Gaza. It moved outward on every front where a border could be pushed. … A war that produces this much cannot be allowed to end, and it has not been.” (10/01/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/thomas_karat/2026/09/30/the-usefulness-of-a-massacre
- Libertarianism’s Critics Bury Another Straw Man
Source: The Daily Economy
by Donald J Boudreaux“Daniel McCarthy — Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the Heritage Foundation — recently penned in the pages of American Spectator, an obituary of sorts for libertarianism. His essay is just the latest contribution to what has become a torrent of triumphalist declarations by pundits on the left and right that we Americans, having gorged ourselves on this junk-food philosophy, are now turning to a healthier diet of statism. Yet McCarthy’s eulogy, like the others, is marred by mistakes. Here are three.” (10/01/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/libertarianisms-critics-bury-another-a-straw-man/
- American Soul-Searching after the Iraq Withdrawal
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“The U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq is not as ignominious as the withdrawal from Afghanistan after some 20 years of occupation, nor does it resemble the humiliating U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam but it can be — and should be — an opportunity for Americans to engage in some serious soul-searching about the concept of foreign interventionism that has become a normal and permanent way of life for the American people. This is especially true given the ongoing fiasco of President Trump’s unconstitutional war on Iran, which has wreaked untold death, destruction, suffering, injuries, and impoverishment on the Iranian people, just like U.S. interventionism did to the people of Iraq under the rubric of bringing them ‘freedom.'” (10/01/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/10/01/american-soul-searching-after-the-iraq-withdrawal/
- How Constitutionalism Allowed Free Markets to Bloom
Source: The Dispatch
by Justin Stapley“A major consequence of the American Revolution was the preservation of the free-market realities engendered by the long tradition of salutary neglect, threatened by the remnants of England’s monarchical leviathan. The American colonists proved to be an exception to English constitutionalism, having no direct representation in Parliament and being at the whim of royal prerogative as a colonial venture under the executive authority of foreign policy. The colonies ended up being outside English polity and thus subject to the whims of mercantilism rather than allowed to continue prospering under the spontaneous capitalism of the mother country. And so, the people revolted.” (10/01/26)
https://thedispatch.com/article/how-constitutionalism-allowed-free-markets-to-bloom/
- Can a wealth tax actually solve our political and fiscal problems? The math says no.
Source: The Hill
by Jeff Hoopes“Forbes recently dropped its 2026 Forbes 400 list: The 400 richest Americans today are worth a combined $8 trillion. Elon Musk, at the tip-top of the list, is worth an estimated $908 billion. If you spend your life thinking about taxes, as I do, a list like this naturally raises the wealth-tax question. One might think such a list would make an argument in favor of wealth taxation. If you think hard about the numbers, however, it actually shows how bad some arguments are in its favor.” (10/01/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/6118919-forbes-400-wealth-tax-rebuttal/
- The American gun-free zone you didn’t know about
Source: Fox News
by Mike Davis“In October 2024, the High Court of American Samoa, an unincorporated territory of the United States, issued a staggering ruling that received little media attention. The justices ruled that, since American Samoa is unincorporated, the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms does not apply there. The ruling allowed a near-total gun ban to take effect. President Donald Trump and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum can and must reverse this immediately. The issue of territories is obscure, so some background is helpful. The United States has 50 states and several territories, including Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa. The District of Columbia also is not a state; however, unlike the other territories, it receives three electoral votes for the presidency pursuant to the 23rd Amendment.” (10/01/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/mike-davis-american-gun-free-zone-didnt-know
- The Good Fight, 10/03/26
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Galen Druke on the Midterms.” (10/03/26)
- The Fifth Column, 10/02/26
Source: The Fifth Column
“The Weave Within the Weave.” (10/02/26)
- Freakonomics Radio, 10/02/26
Source: Freakonomics
“Here’s Why Your Hamburger Just Got So Pricey.” (10/02/26)
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/heres-why-your-hamburger-just-got-so-pricey/
- Half the Answer, episode 106
Source: Liberal Currents
“Everything’s ‘National Security’ in Trump’s Washington.” (10/02/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 10/02/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Why Does America Keep Starving The People It Claims To Be ‘Liberating?'” (10/02/26)
- The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan, 10/02/26
Source: The Weekly Dish
“Emily Eakin On What Postmodernism Wrought.” (10/02/26)
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/emily-eakin-on-what-postmodernism
- System Update, 10/02/26
Source: Glenn Greenwald
“Weekly Q&A with Glenn Greenwald.” (10/02/26)
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/weekly-q-and-a-with-glenn-greenwald-2de
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/02/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump’s Weird Tirade on Midterms Accidentally Reveals Key GOP Weakness.” (10/02/26)
- SolutionsWatch, 10/02/26
Source: The Corbett Report
“James talks to Barry Cooper about his remarkable journey from being one of the top narcotics officers in Texas law enforcement to an activist busting crooked cops and helping drug users avoid arrest.” (10/02/26)
- Pod Save America, 10/02/26
Source: Crooked Media
“Beardos, Weirdos, and Donald Trump.” (10/02/26)
https://audioboom.com/posts/8959700-beardos-weirdos-and-donald-trump
- Nonzero, 10/02/26
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“Trump Let’s the AI Labs Police THEMSELVES?!” (10/02/26)
- The Dispatch Podcast, 10/02/26
Source: The Dispatch
“Sen. Schmitt’s Failed Attack on Jack Smith.” (10/02/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/dispatch-podcast/sen-schmitts-failed-attack-on-jack-smith/
- Sal and Mark, episode 22
Source: Free Talk Live
“Sal checks in from lunch in Florida on his way to Prague, where he’s speaking at Dark Prague on agorism and crypto anarchy. … Mark Edge is joined by Jody Underwood of Education Options (EdOpt) to talk school choice in New Hampshire. They cover tuition-free charter schools, Education Freedom Accounts, runaway school spending, and why the families who could benefit most are often the hardest to reach.” (10/02/26)
- Reason Interview: Robert Pondiscio
Source: Reason
“How Nikole Hannah-Jones Gets School Choice All Wrong.” (10/01/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/10/01/how-nikole-hannah-jones-gets-school-choice-all-wrong/
- Politics Politics Politics, 10/01/26
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Are Data Centers Going to Flip Ohio Blue? Checking in on the Midterms One Month Out (with Kirk Bado).” (10/01/26)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/are-data-centers-going-to-flip-ohio
- The Anarchist Experience, episode 600
Source: The Anarchist Experience
“Rich and Riley discuss the new twist in the Lindsay Clancy saga, and why do modern women suck.” (10/01/26)
https://theanarchistexperience.wordpress.com/2026/10/02/the-anarchist-experience-600/
- Rising, 10/01/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on Florida Rep. Angie Nixon suggesting that her opponent in the state Senate race, Ashley Moody, should be in prison.” (10/01/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 10/01/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Is Trump About To Invade Cuba?” (10/01/26)
- Libertarian Angle, 10/01/26
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“The Dark Legacy of the ‘Good War.'” (10/01/26)
- Declare Your Independence with Ernest Hancock, 10/01/26
Source: Freedom’s Phoenix
“Ernest Hancock interviews Etienne de la Boetie2.” (10/01/026)